Chester’s Pizza, a Hamilton staple, turns 70 years old

On April 1, the Hamilton favorite turned 70 years old, though Chester and Mary Dadabo, the founders of the pizza place first sold frozen and half-baked pizzas in their grocery store, Chester’s Market on Pleasant Avenue in Lindenwald years before the 1954 opening.

Those pizzas took off, said Nick Dadabo, the founding couple’s youngest son. The frozen pizzas came about, Dadabo said, because servicemen who served in Italy during World War II had asked Chester Dadabo about pizza.

Eventually, they got out of the grocery business and went into the pizza business, and it took a lot of hard work, he said.

“The blood, sweat and tears that we’ve all had in there, my personal family and my extended family, including the Mililo’s Bakery because it’s where everything started with the bakery,” Dadabo said of his grandfather who started the bakery.

While Chester’s Pizza today at 2929 Dixie Highway in Hamilton may not be in its original location — but it is not far — it is still mostly made from scratch, said Chuck Vitale, president and CEO of Chester’s, and grandson of Chester and Mary Dadabo. Many of the ingredients used today are procured from Jungle Jim’s in Fairfield, and for nearly 50 years they’ve used cheese from the Italian cheesemaker Grande in Wisconsin.

The most important ingredient, though, that is just as important today as it was in the 1940s when Chester and Mary were first making pizzas in their home kitchen in Lindenwald is passion.

“If you lose your passion,” Vitale said, “you’re going to lose your quality.”

Technology has evolved the pizza business, as ovens are now timed with conveyor belts. In the ‘60s, when Vitale was a teenager, he said, “It was a lot more work back then” when he and others would be oven tenders, rotating pizzas, popping cheese bubbles and ensuring an evenly cooked pie.

“We stick to our guns over here,” he said when it comes to their recipes, from using a high-quality olive oil, red wine and fresh garlic in their pizza sauce. They also make their dough from scratch, as they do their Italian sausage, and breads and buns. Chester’s knows a thing about baking as they are family with the Mililo’s, who owned a bakery years ago.

But Chester’s wouldn’t quite be Chester’s without some coal miners in West Virginia.

Chester Dadabo received his nickname when working in the coal mines of West Virginia, Vitale said. The West Virginians couldn’t pronounce his Italian name, Cesare, which is pronounced Chez-ah-ray, so instead they called him what it most sounded like: Chester.

Vitale started working at Chester’s Pizza when he was a boy, playing with dough before eventually being a paid employee as he learned the family business, and he said the legacy his grandparents started is still up to their standards.

“The biggest thing is that the quality of the product is still just as high,” he said. “It’s a lot of work. When you make everything from scratch, it’s a lot of work. People know we have a very good product over here, but they don’t know what it takes to make that product.”

To order, call (513) 892-1973, and for more Chester’s Pizza news, visit their Facebook page.